Homesteading, Homeschooling, and Homemaking in the PNW

New Zealand White Meat Rabbits–Litter Weights at Week 5 and Week 12

This week has been so busy and I pretty much got knocked flat by what I hope is a 24 hour stomach virus today that I did not have time for. Not that livestock will allow you to be sick. We had to clean cages today regardless of how I felt. We had to get the soiled hay off the shed floor. We had to Macgyver one of the oscillating fans that decided it no longer wanted to oscillate, or hold itself upright, because it was too humid not to have them on all night tonight for the rabbits. Wet heat is not fun, but then neither is dry heat. One makes it hard to breathe and the other seems to burn your skin on contact.

I am so far behind on blueberry picking that if I don’t get it done tomorrow, the birds are going to beat me to it.

The kits are 12 weeks old, 5 weeks old, and 3 days old respectively. It was weigh in day for the 12 week olds and the 5 week olds. The 5 weeks olds are starting to gain some ground.

So the 12 week olds did not put on much this week at all. They all look like they did, though. Andromeda did top the 6 pound mark, like I thought she would. The runt finally made it over 4 pounds. I think we will process the 4 that weigh 5 pounds this week and let the 2 that weigh 4 pounds grow until week 15. Although my niece wants to adopt the runt if she can talk her mother (my SIL) into it. I told them I would loan them one of the outdoor hutches. If she does then we will probably go ahead and process the second to smallest with the 5 pounders just so we don’t have to set up for one rabbit.

We are still waiting on the new cages to arrive. They should have arrived on Friday. Not sure what is up with that. Hopefully they will show up tomorrow. I’d like to get them built so the 12 week olds can have a bit more room their last week of life.